Iowa State basketball player Morgan Kane's nonprofit helps children pay for service dogs

Iowa State freshman Morgan Kane talks about why she helped create a non-profit to help kids.
Tommy Birch, tbirch@dmreg.com

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At 13-years-old Iowa State freshman forward Morgan Kane started a non-profit raising money to provide service dogs to people in her hometown of Salt Lake City. She said she wanted to try something different and ended up at ISU to play basketball. Here she poses for a portrait in the practice facility on Tuesday, July 3, 2018, in Ames.(Photo11: Brian Powers/The Register)Buy Photo

AMES, Ia. — When Iowa State freshman Morgan Kane was in junior high school, she saw firsthand how much a service dog could help.

A service dog helped her friend Tabitha Bell pick up things she'd dropped and assist her in getting to class. For Bell, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, the service dog was critical in offering her a better quality of life.

The two decided they wanted to do whatever they could to help kids that needed assistance getting a service dog.

“We just started talking,” Kane said. “She said, ‘This is what I want to do ... I want to help people and I want to start a nonprofit organization.’ And I said I wanted to help."

Together, the two friends founded the Sandy, Utah-based Pawsitive Pawsibilities — a nonprofit that raises money for service dogs and helps place them with children.

Kane, a freshman forward for the Cyclones, and Bell still run the nonprofit, which has helped place nine service dogs around the country.

“It’s really fun to have somebody that will actually carry half of the load as well as make it fun,” Bell said.

Forming a friendship and an organization

It all started with a dog named Sunny.

Bell was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in fourth grade. While she and her family lived in San Diego, they saw how service dogs helped veterans at nearby Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

They thought a service dog may help her. So they got Sunny.

Sunny, a German shepherd and Belgian Malinois mix, went everywhere with Bell. He walked with her around campus and even slept by her feet at class. More importantly, Sunny provided balance and physical support for Bell. He picked up things, took papers to teachers and got them off the printer.

“It changed my world,” Bell said.

So did Kane. When Bell moved and switched schools, Kane was assigned as her mentor. She had to give her a tour of the school and help her learn the ropes. She also provided physical support, even helping pick her up when she’d fall.

“I remember her scooping me up almost five times a day,” Bell said.

From left, Morgan Kane and Tabitha Bell both founded Pawsitive Pawsibilities.(Photo11: Photo courtesy of Morgan Kane)

The relationship evolved into a friendship.

The two would chat together on the way to class. Kane would walk slowly with Bell to make sure she had company. Bell told Kane her life story and even about an old school that wouldn’t allow her to bring a dog to school.

“We were able to develop a friendship from that,” Kane said.

During the walks, Bell would tell Kane about how she wanted to help other kids. Bell’s family had spent around $14,000 to buy and train Sunny. It was a lot of money, especially for her family with Bell undergoing nine surgeries throughout the years.

Bell realized not everyone could afford that type of treatment and also have a dog. Buying a dog and training it cost enough money as it is. She wanted to help other families with some of those big costs by creating a nonprofit that would provide funding for service dogs. Kane jumped at the opportunity to help when Bell told her about her plan.

“I want to do this because I really love helping people and I have that desire to see improvement in other people’s lives,” Kane said. “And I really loved how Tabitha progressed with her service dogs and we wanted to do that for other people.”

'It was nerve-wracking at first'

Kane and Bell started the nonprofit from the ground up..

The two came up with the name and a logo. They got the word out about the organization by creating brochures and tried generating donations from other students by speaking at a school assembly. Kane was around 13 years old at the time.

The two got donations from benefit concerts. Last November they hosted a 5K run. Kane, who worked for her parents at their rock-climbing business, even donated her own money to help the cause. It's all added up.

Bell said they’ve raised $130,000 and placed nine dogs with people.

“We’re 100 percent a nonprofit organization, so that’s really exciting that we’re able to put all that money that we’ve made towards the service of purchasing the dogs,” Kane said.

The two also invest a ton of time into matching a dog with a person. Kane and Bell partnered with a trainer who prepares the dogs. They get prospective dogs together with owners and give them an assessment to see if they are compatible.

“We’re just working with finding the right match from person to dog,” Kane said.

The focus is on helping kids, but they aren't the only ones. The organization helped 27-year-old Carson Tueller, who lives in Utah and is paralyzed.

Tueller, who had already bought a dog, needed help paying for the goldendoodle service dog's training. He got in touch with Bell and now he said Pawsitive Pawsibilities is saving him thousands by paying for it.

"It honestly makes the impossible possible," Tueller said. "Animal training is expensive. Dogs are expensive. Service training is very expensive. For a lot of people, including myself, I have a lot of costs to cover."

But Bell and Kane's organization is helping ease some of those burdens so that he can have a helpful companion assist him with everyday chores.

"She's going to help me with lights, turning on and off," Tueller said. "She'll be helping me carry things. But, above all, she'll be helping me retrieve so she'll be trained to get certain items or pick up things that I drop out of my chair or my car and bring them back to me."

They've had plenty of success so far. The two got an up-close look at the impact they had on people when they went and visited all the people and dogs they've matched.

"It was so exciting to see the smiles on the people's faces and the glow that people that you see (have) when people are able to walk for the first time or do the task that they said they'd never be able to do again," Kane said. "So, it's really rewarding to see the progression and the continuation of progress that's been made by everyone."

Most of the work is done from their families' homes. And now that they’re off to school, at college. The two have generated clients mostly by word of mouth. They’ve spoken to trainers, passed out brochures, and spread the word through their events. They also created a website, pawsitivepawsibilities.org, so people can find them online, too.

“It’s really cool how big, how important word of mouth is — how it spreads and it gets people excited,” Kane said. “So, we’ve met a lot of people in Utah and it’s been really exciting over the past couple of years to meet people and to share our story, but also learn from other people’s stories, because people have come to us really sharing challenging and memorable experiences that we’ve been able to implicate and grow from as well.”

'It wasn’t something she bragged about'

Even with Bell off to Berkeley and Kane off to Iowa State, the two plan to continue the nonprofit into college. Bell is the executive director and Kane is the associate director. Both of their families are also heavily involved and will take some of the workload off their plates. Things will be especially busy for Kane, as she prepares for her first season with the Iowa State women’s basketball team.

But the nonprofit is still important to her. Kane’s devotion to helping others was part of what drew Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly to her. Fennelly was chatting with her during a visit when Kane mentioned that the 5K she and Bell had organized was coming up.

“It wasn’t something she bragged about,” Fennelly said. “It was something that in conversation, it just came up. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, coach, by the way, I want you to know this about me.’ That’s not how she is. I think she handles those kind of things in a way where she’s very organized and wants to help people.”

Fennelly thinks she can help the Iowa State women’s basketball program, too.

Kane averaged 17.4 points and 10.9 rebounds during her junior season of high school. A season later, she was named Utah’s 6A Player of the Year. Fennelly said the 6-foot-3 freshman has already proven she’s willing to work hard during the summer workouts he’s seen her in. He also anticipates Kane getting involved off the court and around the community, much like she did back home.

Buy Photo

At 13-years-old Iowa State freshman forward Morgan Kane started a non-profit raising money to provide service dogs to people in her hometown of Salt Lake City. She said she wanted to try something different and ended up at ISU to play basketball. Here she poses for a portrait in the practice facility on Tuesday, July 3, 2018, in Ames.(Photo11: Brian Powers/The Register)

“I’m kind of waiting to see what happens here — what she comes up with and what she gets her teammates involved in,” Fennelly said. “She’s a very, very bright kid and someone who really wants to make an impact in a positive way.”

Kane said she hopes to keep having an impact on children who need service dogs. In fact, she hopes to see the nonprofit continue to grow and help even more people.

“Hopefully, one day, we can extend this into something greater,” Kane said.